It’s certainly been a busy start to 2015. The economy is growing. Construction business is booming again and everyone in our industry – from owners to contractors to vendors – is scrambling to try and keep up with significantly greater workloads. While being busy is generally good news, what we need to be careful of is losing business focus in the meantime – not seeing the forest for the trees.

Each year, at the end of April, we host our annual users’ conference. Folks from all over make the trek to beautiful Seattle, Washington to learn more about their Spectrum software, and also to see what new features and applications we have in store. It’s a great event. Though we love hosting the conference, it takes a great deal of planning and collaboration company-wide. Departments are tasked with organizing various activities, and how they will get done. It’s a large undertaking with many moving parts. That’s why we establish workflows to make sure everything gets done efficiently. We each have a specific role to play in putting the event on, and we know who we need to work with most closely.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the World of Concrete tradeshow in Las Vegas. Something we like to do every year, in addition to showing off our latest construction software and mobile apps, is to provide an open bar at our exhibit booth. Visitors could grab a cold beer, glass of wine, soft drink or just a cold bottle of water.

During this time of year, it seems one thing is on everyone’s minds: football. From the casual fan to the die-hard face-painting types, people love to talk about the game they just watched. I think it’s great. The camaraderie, being a part of something bigger than yourself, the tightening of a community—these are all wonderful things. It all stems from teamwork. Everyone on a contending football team contributes to the team’s overall success with their own unique skills to accomplish something they couldn’t do alone.

As we look ahead at a promising 2015 for the construction industry, my thoughts are on messaging. Right now, the sales and marketing teams here at Dexter + Chaney are gearing up for yet another whirlwind trade show season. With that comes honing the message of what our own construction management software can help our clients achieve. In thinking about how to effectively communicate that message, I was reminded of something I saw during a trade show around this time last year.